Steroid testing eyed for police

Other cities to be studied Davis says changes would be negotiated

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis is thinking of making his officers do something uncommon in big city departments: submit to regular testing for steroids.

As a federal grand jury probes steroid use in the Boston Police Department, Davis has ordered his aides to research the ways other departments around the country test for the drug.

"It really does revolve around the issues of steroids causing aggression in people and the concern around that problem," Davis said in a recent telephone interview. "We would look at other policies around the country to look at best practices. We certainly don't want to write the book from scratch if it's already being written."

However, a Globe survey of nine major departments - including New York, Los Angeles, and the Massachusetts State Police - found that none of them test regularly for steroids.

Instead, those departments follow protocols similar to Boston's. Officers are regularly tested for narcotics such as cocaine and amphetamines. They are only checked for steroids if officials suspect they are using them.

Officials from police departments in other cities say that testing for steroids is too expensive to do regularly. It costs at least $100 to test for anabolic steroids, but only about $25 for a test that determines whether an officer has taken marijuana, opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, or PCP.

Officials say testing for narcotics has historically been a bigger priority for supervisors and citizens, who worry more about the effects of those drugs on a gun-wielding police officer than that of steroids.

"I think just historically that narcotics use was considered more of a threat to law enforcement," said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne of the New York Police Department. "I think the threat of narcotics use, specifically narcotics use and the involvement of violent organized gangs and its distribution, made the use of those drugs particularly of concern."

The steroid scandal engulfing Major League Baseball, however, has shifted attention to the effects of steroids, which can cause violent mood swings, aggression, and paranoia.

Recent federal probes have indicated that the drug has reached police departments.

Boston police are still reeling from the embarrassment of a 2006 FBI investigation into three officers who eventually were convicted of scheming to guard truckloads of cocaine. During that probe, federal investigators found that three officers in the department's motorcycle unit were using steroids. For at least the last three months, a federal grand jury has questioned at least 12 other officers about steroid use.

In 2004, the DEA found that a bodybuilder in Norman, Okla., was selling steroids to police officers. Earlier this month, a Miami police officer was charged with buying steroids through the mail.

Departments in several major cities say they are considering expanding their drug policy to include steroids.

"It is being looked at in the future to be added to our random screening," said Officer Marcel Bright of the Chicago Police Department.

Steroid use "not only impairs [officers'] judgment. It also impairs their ability to enforce drug laws if they're actually using them," Bright said.

When it comes to punishing officers who test positive for drugs, several departments are tougher than Boston, the Globe survey found.

Chicago, Miami, New York, and Philadelphia fire officers who test positive for illegal drug use. Boston officers who test positive for illegal use of drugs, including steroids, are suspended for 45 days. Davis strengthened the penalties last year when he ordered that officers who test positive be subject to random drug testing for the rest of their careers.

Boston police officers caught a second time are immediately fired.

In the next three months, Boston police plan to train sergeants and lieutenants to watch for signs of steroid abuse, such as sudden muscle gain or mood swings, police said.

Officers will also be taught the dangers of the drug during health seminars the department holds regularly.

Davis declined to provide more details about revamping the testing policy. He said that any changes would have to be negotiated with the unions.

Jack Parlon, president of the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society, said that during contract negotiations last year, his union offered to let the department test for steroids in exchange for specialized training and pay increases based on level of training for detectives. The department declined the offer.

Parlon said he was open to discussing steroid testing again, but he called on the department to find a test that rank-and-file officers could trust.

"Anabolic steroids are a whole new horizon for us," he said. "It's a new place. And we have to make sure that we're not subjecting people to a test that is unfair. . . . I can't have detectives out there submit to a test that we're not sure is 100 percent accurate. I'm not going to put people's careers on the line."